I’ve been too busy lately and hadn’t even realized that this is OLD news. Like a month old. Still, it’s my turn to pass on some thoughts.
The officially released news states that due to illness, Rolando Villazon will be canceling the next couple months of performances. This is, of course, a slight blow to the Met since they’ve been advertising the Villazon/Netrebko package ever since I can remember going to the Met. However, I must say that the replacements intrigue me quite a bit – although both were already scheduled in other operas.
Joseph Kaiser was going to make his Met debut in the Magic Flute in November 13th. Now he’ll be coming about month earlier to take the October performances of Romeo and Juliette. The opera blogosphere, in general, seems to be very supportive of him, although I had to chuckle when I found out he was not one of the winners of the Met’s National Council Auditions in 2005 (I wonder where the winners are now?). But since then, he’s apparently worked himself up the ladder to become of the promising new young tenors. I’ll be looking forward to hearing him.
Despite all attempts to forget, Roberto Alagna will forever be associated getting booed out of La Scala last year – at least in my mind. He’ll be replacing Villazon in the September performances and then moving on to star in Madama Butterfly in October at the Met.
